ICS systems include so-called supervisory control and data acquisition systems (SCADA) and so-called distributed control systems (DCS). ICS systems typically monitor and control distributed field devices in, for example, electrical power grids, electrical power plants, environmental control, oil refining plants, chemical plants, pharmaceutical manufacturing, sensor networks, water management systems, traffic management, etc. A SCADA system operates with coded signals over communication channels so as to provide control of remote equipment using typically one communication channel per remote station. The SCADA system may be combined with a data acquisition system by adding the use of coded signals over communication channels to acquire information about the status of the remote equipment for display or for recording functions. DCS systems are computer-based systems that monitor and control industrial processes that exist in the physical world. SCADA systems are typically designed as being large-scale processes that can include multiple sites, and large distances. These processes include industrial, infrastructure, and facility-based processes, such as industrial processes (e.g., manufacturing, production, power generation, fabrication, and refining) which may run in continuous, batch, repetitive, or discrete modes, infrastructure processes which may be public or private (e.g., water treatment and distribution, wastewater collection and treatment, oil and gas pipelines, electrical power transmission and distribution, wind farms, civil defense siren systems, and large communication systems), and facility processes which can occur both in public facilities and private ones (e.g., buildings, airports, ships, and space stations) for monitoring and controlling heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems (HVAC), access, and energy consumption.
For operating and maintaining such ICS (SCADA/DCS) systems it can be important to quickly identify ICS components in the real world (real world objects) or to quickly retrieve information about the technical status of real world objects. Finding the location of an ICS object on a Geographic Information System (GIS) map or in a process view is typically done by a user entering the respective object ID or name into a search box or selecting the object name from a predefined list. This user interaction pattern for object selection (e.g., using a mouse click, a double click, etc.) may in some cases be impractical as the default action may be used for other actions. Sometimes, it may be necessary to copy and paste the object IDs or names using a clipboard function.
Drag & drop technology is known from use cases, such as for example configuring an alarm display as disclosed in the European patent application EP2560085. For example, some known GIS applications support directed associating operations, such as for example drag and drop, drag and relate or multi-touch gestures on touch-screens, to add a new layer to a GIS view. In this context, traditionally, drag and drop like operations are used to add or place elements on a plan. However, performing such a drag and drop like functions between ICS objects and GIS objects or process objects to automatically execute a respective function is not supported by existing frontend systems used for operating industrial control systems.